Iraq’s Sadr did not attend national dialogue meeting

The leader of the Sadrist movement in Iraq, Muqtada Al-Sadr did not attend the national dialogue meeting held yesterday afternoon at the invitation of Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to end the country’s political deadlock, Anadolu Agency reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, Al-Kadhimi invited the country’s rival political leaders to attend a national meeting at the cabinet headquarters in Baghdad and to find a solution to the political deadlock as disputes escalated in the past weeks between Al-Sadr and his rivals from the Coordination Framework, an umbrella group of Shia parliamentary parties.

A number of Iraqi political leaders and top officials attended yesterday’s meeting in the presence of the United Nations envoy to Iraq, Jeanine Plasschaert, however, the Sadrist movement refused to attend.

Al-Sadr’s office said in a statement that “the Sadrist movement, with all its components and political figures, did not participate in the political dialogue called for by the Prime Minister today, neither directly nor indirectly.”

Local political leaders and many countries in the region are calling on Iraq’s rival parties to resort to dialogue as the only way to resolve the country’s crisis, while local, regional and international forces fear the country could slide into chaos.

The coordination framework insist on forming a government headed by its pro- Iran candidate, Muhammad Shayya’ Al-Sudani, while the Sadrist movement insists on dissolving parliament and holding early elections.

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